Informix CEO Finocchio Will Step Down / Chief lieutenant Dexmier to replace him in July

Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, May 6, 1999

Database software-maker Informix Corp. said yesterday that Bob Finocchio will step down as president and chief executive in July and be replaced by his chief lieutenant, Jean-Yves Dexmier.

Dexmier, 47, joined the Menlo Park company in October 1997 as chief financial officer and is currently vice president for worldwide field operations.

Finocchio, also 47, will remain with Informix as chairman of the board. Relinquishing the posts he has held since 1997 will allow him to spend more time with his family, although he will first pursue a long- held dream of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest point in Africa.

Rob Tholemeier, an analyst with the FACS/Equities division of First Albany Corp., was unimpressed by the sudden leadership shuffle and said Informix and Dexmier still have a steep mountain of their own to climb.

Informix maintains only a sliver of the database market dominated by Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp. and IBM.

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"They're not going anywhere, they're sitting in the mud spinning their wheels," said Tholemeier, who rates Informix as underperform.

"Before I would invest in Informix, I'd buy another coffee shop on the Embarcadero. You don't buy a minor player in a slow- growing technology industry," Tholemeier said.

Informix posted $52.3 million in net income on sales of $735 million for 1998, a sharp reversal from the $358.8 million net loss the year before. Finocchio said in an interview yesterday that he was proud that Informix posted six consecutives quarters of operating profit because he and Dexmier "worked very hard to fix what was broken with the company and build on what we had here."

Dexmier, a native of France and a former CFO for Octel Communications, said he plans to continue the firm's strategy of marketing electronic commerce and data warehousing services in addition to database software.

"It's going to be all about building shareholder value from now on," he said. "It's a continuity of leadership."

The announcement was made after the stock markets closed. Informix stock closed at $7 per share, down 6 cents, on Nasdaq.